


ChainedTale

by ShadeboundFenrir



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: But Chara is contained, Frisk is possessed, Made Up Magic Science, Post-Souless Pacifist, Sans and Alphys are science pals, im probably going to rewrite this cause its been too long
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-22
Updated: 2016-08-22
Packaged: 2018-08-10 11:23:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,983
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7843000
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadeboundFenrir/pseuds/ShadeboundFenrir
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Almost a year after the monsters came to the surface, Sans dreams about someone he recognizes but does not remember. Someone who may be the key to tying all loose ends and save those who must still be saved. (Not shippy but you can interpret character interactions anyway you want.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Wake Up Call

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first Undertale fanfic and second fanfic in general. It is fully planned and not that long tho I haven't finished writing it yet due to a lack of motivation. Here's hoping someone finds it entertaining.

      _DARK DARKER YET DARKER THE DARKNESS KEEPS GROWING THE SHADOWS CUTTING DEEPER_  
    “… wha…?” He had been ready to wake like nothing was wrong, he had plastered a smile on his face, prepared to greet his brother and opened his eyes. The smile immediately fell. He standing in the middle of a pitch black darkness, unable to move. His mind started racing: _Where is this? What happened? Did Frisk do something? Did I do something? Did I not do something? Is everyone dead?_  
 _…_  
    _Whose voice was that?_  
As he pondered, the darkness started to move. He watched as contrastingly white digits slowly emerged and began grasping at anything but the darkness kept slipping in between. Finally, they somehow got a firm hold and began climbing? A black substance, barely distinguishable from it’s surroundings came after them. It was constantly shifting, sometimes barely solid, other times a melting liquid. A second hand appeared to aid in pulling up from the darkness. Then a white round object started appearing from between the substance, facial features becoming visible as the black goop dripped down from it and fell into the void. Cracks across both eyes, a wavering smile. It opened it’s mouth to speak.

   _SANS… HOW…?_

    “What? I- I don’t… Who are you? Did you do this?” His tone became accusatory. Whatever this was, he wasn’t going to let it be. Everyone had worked so had to get where they were. They were so close to getting everything right. This couldn’t be the end.

    He glared at the other monster but stopped halfway through the motion. It was doubling over as if in pain. The apparently solid white parts had started to slightly melt away.

    No… it was going to disappear just like it had appeared. He couldn’t let it happen, not when it could be the only way to understand the situation. He tried to move even though he couldn’t feel his limbs. He tried to use his magic to manually move his arm but grasped at nothing. He breathed heavily at the thought of somehow having lost his arms and legs but a distorted groan reminded him of what was currently at stake. He put all of his focus on the other monster and tried to keep them together, not an easy feat without his arms to guide the motion. Yet when he finally got a hold of it, he felt his magic hold on to everything, yet nothing at the same time. He panicked, this was beyond his power. He was going to lose them and then he would be stuck alone in this void forever.

    His thoughts were rapidly falling into desperation when he noticed that even when the other monster seemed to be everywhere, it was slowly falling even more apart. He had to fight that, no matter what. He pulled it all together as hard as he could until he felt a strong resistance. It was like two magnets that simply refused to be put together. But he didn’t stop, he kept going. Then his concentration was interrupted as the other monster finally straightened and looked at him sadly.

    “That’s enough, Sans.”

    And Sans woke up.

* * *

 

    Shivering, covered in sweat. He raised his hands to his head, taking deep breaths while pressing his face as he felt the magic in his surroundings slowly die out. _Must’ve made a hell of a mess,_ he thought with a sigh. He sat up in his bed and looked around for damage control. Nothing. Everything was in it’s place and unbroken. “No way,” he whispered out. He got up and walked around the room, not believing his eyes. The fact that the magic was present when he woke up meant that he had actually held on to something while he was dreaming and had actually tried to move it. But nothing had moved. Sans sat back on the bed and started thinking. He remembered the feeling of somehow holding onto everything and nothing at the same time. Had that actually happened? If so, what had he actually held onto? He mentally went over the many physics studies he had back at the lab but nothing seemed to fit. What if it was something beyond physical matter? Wait. Had he heard something like that before? It felt like it, but he couldn’t exactly remember. It felt like it had probably happened before Frisk’s resets… No. It felt like trying to remember something from before Flowey’s resets, when he was much younger. Who had said something like that? He mentally went over all the people he had ever met in his life but none of them fit. Maybe he would ask Papyrus and hope that he didn’t find it suspicious. The time Sans had spent living while being aware of the resets had made him forget lots of things. His brother didn’t need to know that.

    Sans got up and walked to the middle of his room. There was only one more thing left to do. He put up his arms and tried to recreated the dream. He spread his magic as much as he could, seeing if he could somehow grab onto the apparent void between matter that he had felt before. It proved to be a lot more difficult to do consciously and without having a visual to focus on. Finally, he felt that he was pretty close the same feeling, but he had to make sure. So he pulled.

    And everything fell off the shelves and desk in his room.

    Sans barely had time the time to properly register what had happened before his brother barged into his room.

    “SANS! WHAT WAS THAT NOISE?” yelled Papyrus before noticing the mess, “WHAT DID YOU DO?”

    “Sorry, bro.” Sans replied, quickly smiling at his brother, “I was sleep-magic casting.”

    “BUT HOW DID YOU MANAGE TO DROP EVERYTHING ON THE FLOOR?” Papyrus questioned as he gestured around the room.

    “There was a TON of bees,” Sans said non-chalantly as Papyrus squinted his eyes, “a skeleTON.”

    “…”

    “…”  
    “Please clean your room, Sans.”

    “Will do, bro” Sans then proceeded to carefully place the less delicate objects back in their place with his magic.

     Papyrus scratched the back of his head, “I don’t think I’ll ever get used to you actually cleaning your things.” He then places his hands on his hips and nodded to himself, “But of cOURSE! MY BROTHER IS NO LONGER A LAZY SLOB! YOU ARE NOW A GREAT SCIENTIST! ALMOST AS GREAT AS ME! NYEHEHE!”

    “Aw, bro. There’s no one as great as you are.” Sans chuckled as he picked up papers and placed them back on the desk. “And I’m pretty sure Alphys is still a better scientist than me.”

    “ONLY BECAUSE YOU STOPPED ALL THOSE YEARS AGO. FOR… SOME REASON? IT DOESN’T MATTER, YOU’RE BACK!” Papyrus turned around to leave the room. “NOW FINISH CLEANING SO WE CAN HAVE BREAKFAST!”

    Sans waved him off and began placing science books back on the bookshelf. He picked up one about time travel theories, the first book he’d gotten on the surface, and remembered the look on Papyrus’ face as he realized that Sans was into science again after all those years. The reason for stopping had of course been the never-ending resets that had made everything irrelevant, although he did keep a lot of things in the basement. But now, it was necessary. Of course he wouldn’t have taken the sciences back up unless there was a reason.  
    Sans placed the last book on the shelf and looked around the room to make sure nothing else was amiss. Contented with the cleaning, he exited the room and headed to the kitchen.

    He walked the modest apartment as the scent of spaghetti permeated the air. He reached the source as Papyrus was starting to sit down on the small plastic table they had on the kitchen. Sans sat down as well and took a forkful of pasta. It was slowly gaining taste, much different than in the underground.

    “It somehow gets even greater everyday, bro.” Sans casually got up and went to the fridge, took some ketchup, sat back at the table and mixed it with the tomato sauce. “I’ve got to KETCHUP to some work today.”

     “SANS!” Papyrus gestured in the air with his fork and sighed, “EVEN IF YOU’RE BACK TO SCIENCE YOU STILL MAKE PUNS…”

    Sans laughed and both brothers continued to eat in silence. Papyrus seemed to be deep in thought.

    He suddenly spoke up, “DO YOU THINK FRISK HAS CHANGED AS WELL? DO YOU THINK THEY’LL EVER RETURN?”  
    Sans nearly choked on his food. He started to lightly tap his plate with the fork, averting his eyes from his brother’s, never letting his smile fall.

    “Who knows? I mean, I wouldn’t rule it out.”

    Papyrus nodded and silence reclaimed the room. Both brothers finished eating and Sans got up to wash his plate.

    “SANS, DO YOU REALLY HAVE TO CATCH UP TO WORK TODAY OR DID YOU SAY THAT JUST FOR THE SAKE OF A BAD PUN?” said Papyrus as he walked over to the sink with his own plate.

    “I meant it,bro.” Sans placed his washed plate in the drying rack and stepped aside so Papyrus could use the sink. “I’m just gonna hole up in my room for a while before I head out, don’t worry.”

    “IS IT THE USUAL THING YOU HAVE TO DO WITH THOSE SEALED BOXES YOU LEAVE IN THE SPARE ROOM NOW AND THEN?” Papyrus put his own dishes onto the rack and started walking to the main hallway with Sans.

    “Yep.” Sans walked towards said closet and opened the door. “I’ll get to it right away. See you later, bro.”

    “SEE YOU LATER,SANS.”

    Sans looked into the closet and picked up a box in his arms, then lifted two more with magic and made them follow him back into his room. Once inside he closed and locked the door. He sets the boxes in the middle of his room and took a cardboard cutter from his desk to open them. He inspected the dozens of cans of food inside each box to make sure nothing was missing. Nodding to himself, he piled the boxes on top of each other and walked to his closet. He put on a dark blue parka and some slippers. Then he walked to the pile of boxes and set his hand over them.

    He teleported.     

* * *

 

Absolute darkness. Sans was paralyzed for a second. _Oh god. It’s the dream. Everything is gone, everyone is dead._ He heard clothes shuffling and the room was suddenly lit in red.     He was in the middle of a vast, barely lit room. Basic bed pressed against a corner, boxes and cans piled in another, toys littered along the right wall, TV and a console along the left. And in front of him, taking almost all of the space in the wall, laid a pumping machine, bright lights covered it’s front, bright red liquid was visible through glass panels closer to the sides. DETERMINATION. A small figure began walking from next to machine, a large cloth that had probably been used to block the lights sat next to it, until it was facing Sans.

    The child looked at him and smiled, but it was a brief one. Sans imagined that he must have looked terrible considering he was still having issues breathing from the initial shock in the darkness. He tried to return the smile but it probably made him look like a madman. He tried, and failed, to not look at the tubes that kept the child connected to the machine, mixing the determination with their own blood, keeping the demon at bay.

    “Hey, Sans.” the child tried to smile again as they greeted.

    “Hey, Frisk.” Sans greeted back. 


	2. The Visitor

    Sans didn’t stay for long.  
    “I’d love to stay and chat, kid, but we’re gonna run some tests today and if all goes well we might be closer to… uh… helping you with your… problem. Yeah. See ya.”  
    And then he was gone in the blink of an eye, leaving the boxes behind.  
    Frisk stretched their arms upwards and walked back to the machine, picked up the cloth and laid it over the contraption to block the lights once again. Then they went to lay on their side on the bed, looking towards the wall. They would see what food Sans had brought them later.  
    Today was a particular kind of day. A rare day where Chara was particularly insistent in trying to reclaim their control over Frisk’s soul and were constantly attempting to bring them down.  
    _This is all a waste of time. We’re both gonna be trapped down here forever and nothing that those two try will ever change that._  
Frisk tried to lay on their back despite the tubes but was unsuccessful, “I know they will find a solution, someday. And then I will be able to save you.”  
    _Someday? It’s been months. They’re never gonna free you._  
“Oh, I dunno. These things take a lot of time don’t they?”  
    _I can’t stand your sickening optimism._  
“That’s because you’re such a downer, ha ha!”  
    _Don’t you realize? It’s unnatural._  
“Unnatural?”, Frisk questioned as they sat up on the bed.  
    _They’re keeping me trapped by doping you on Determination._  
“It’s just a little help. You should already know that I’m a very Determined person by nature.”  
    _You really haven’t realized?_  
“Realized what?”  
    _Your own Determination is gone. The lizard likely noticed and has been increasing the amount of artificial Determination in your blood without telling you. This hope and certainty you feel… it’s all fake. By now you should have been a mindless human shaped lump on the floor if it weren’t for-_  
Frisk moved the cloth on the machine aside for a moment in order the turn up a dial. Chara’s voice  gradually went quiet as the Determination flowed faster . Frisk took a deep breath and covered the machine again. Then they to a light switch next to it and turned on the lights.  
    They approached the boxes, wondering what Sans had brought them this time. Peering into the closest box with a smile, they grabbed a can of ground meat and another of beans. Frisk opened both and grabbed a spoon from the pile of old boxes in the corner. They took a spoonful of beans, chewed calmly and swallowed.  
    Today is going to be another great day.  
    “Well, that certainly was quite the spectacle.”, a voice said. Frisk abruptly turned around, startled. A few of the floor tiles next to the machine were slowly moving, screeching against each other. Once there was enough space, he showed up. Vines sprouted from the dirt underneath and crawled out of the hole, then, slowly, a single flower rised into the room with an amused smile, “I guess you got tired of chatting with Chara, no?”  
    “Flowey! Why are you here? How did you even get here?” Frisk asked calmy as they spooned meat into the beans can, earning a laugh from Flowey.  
    “Your ‘friends’ should be more careful when discussing your… arrangements,” he said, keeping his eyes on Frisk, “If it wasn’t for that, then I would have never known that Chara had been with you all along.Even with that ‘little stunt’ you pulled to break free from their influence.”  
    "Haha, yeah… I didn’t know myself until… well. Stuff happened, you know? But everything’s going to be fine. I’m sure of it.” Frisk said between spoonfuls.  
    “Haha? You seem awfully calm despite your situation” Flowey’s expression went dark as he grinned maniacally, “A r e  y o u  n o t  a f r a i d ?”  
    Frisk looked confused as they put the now-empty cans of food aside, “I- Why would I? I know it’s you, **Asriel**. You won’t hurt me.”  
    Flowey laughed out loud, “You of all people should be well aware that that kid is dead, you  i d i o t .” He shook his head. “Well, I guess that’s enough. I’m not gonna get anything but denial from you.” He looked at them straight in the eyes. “Determination is pretty strong stuff. I know. I was born from it.”     Frisk heard a a silent voice from within their head. _I  t o l  d  y o u  s o_ . But they pretended not to hear it.     Flowey continued, “But that doesn’t matter. Nothing else matters right now. Because. I only came here to do once thing. ” Vines crawled towards the machine, throwing the cloth away. Letting the red light shine against the spikes. “I’m here to free my best friend.“  
    The vines wrapped themselves around the machine. "FLOWEY, NO! You’re going to get hurt!” Frisk shouted, breaking away from their daze for a brief moment as they knew they had to prevent Flowey from freeing Chara.  
    “Hahaha… Hahaha! Me? Get hurt? Oh, I assure you, we’re going to be the last persons to ever get hurt from this. You and me…” He looked to the side with a grin. “Well, not exactly YOU but you get me.”  
    “No! Flowey, Chara has killed you before! While knowing who you were!”  
    “…” His expression changed into a completely neutral one. Then he lightly smiled as he looked back at Frisk. “Why  would  I  believe  such  an  obvious  lie  ?”  
    “I…” Frisk looked downwards, thinking. “You… you said Chara wasn’t a good person, remember? Do you… remember that? Back in the ruins?”  
    Flowey squinted his eyes, “I don’t remember. But that sounds like something _that wimp_ would say…”  
    Frisk breathed heavily, thoughts becoming foggy as they started calming down. They shook their head. "Uh… w-why? Why would you say that? You… were best friends, right? Siblings, even.” They pressed the bridge of their nose, losing their train of thought. “Er… what…? What was… Chara like? Way back then?”  
    “I have no reason to answer you. You’re stalling.” He smiled wider.  
    “I’m not! I’m… cu…rious.” Frisk gestured up with their hands. “You…  You said they had a sick sense of humor…”  
    Flowey’s expression tensed, as if trying to remember something. “When…  When did I say that?”  
 _“_ On the run where Chara… Where _we_ killed everyone. That’s how Chara took control, it wasn’t like this at first.”  
    Flowey’s expression was indescifrable, he was silent for a brief moment. Then spoke.“ Tell me what happened.”  
    Frisk sighed with relief and smiled.  "You tell me first.“

* * *

    Sans walked down the white hallway. He crossed paths with a couple of human researchers, getting looks from every single one. He was already used to it. It’s not like his area was too far from the entrance.  
    Ever since the monsters had returned to the surface there had been massive research efforts in order to learn as much as possible about them, about souls and about DETERMINATION. Apparently the human wizards had been rejected by society in fear of their magic, even though they had locked the monsters underground, or perhaps, because they had done this and proven to be dangerous. The thing was, humans no longer knew about magic or monsters. Everything had been reduced to mere legends. But research was more out of morbid curiosity than out of a desire to understand and collaborate.  
    Sometimes Sans wondered what if their welcome to the surface had gone worse than it had. He then had to spend the rest of the day reminding himself that it hadn’t happened and that everything was fine. Everyone was fine.  
    Well… not everyone. But that’s why he was here.  
    He stopped before the door to the office he shared with Alphys and was about to open when he heard chatter. It was Alphys and…  
    Toriel.  
    His grip tightened around the doorknob and he took several deep breaths. _She doesn’t know, she doesn’t know._ And silently opened the door.  
    ”… it would be a great experience if you could…“ Toriel stopped when she heard the door open and turned to greet him. "Oh! Hello, Sans!”  
    She was standing in the middle of the room. Alphys was nowhere in sight. He smiled.  
(picture here)  
    “Hey, Tori, Alphys…?” A reptilian hand waved awkardly from behind Toriel. “Oh. There you are. What were you two talking about?” He asked as casually as possible as he stepped into the room.  
    “Oh, I was just asking Alphys if you and her could give a lecture at the school.” She stepped aside, letting Alphys into Sans’ field of view. “Many of the students are really into science and look up to you two.”  
    Sans looked down with a gentler expression, a strange but good feeling weighting down on his chest. _Look up to._ Must be what Papyrus likes so much about helping Undyne with her gym classes.  
    “U-um.” Alphys suddenly spoke up. “We were waiting for you t-to get here before making a d-decision.”  
Toriel was looking at both of them, expectantly. Sans looked at Alphys, she subtly gestured her head towards him. “Hmmm.” He said, catching Toriel’s attention. Now that she wasn’t being watched anymore, Alphys shook her head. Sans slightly scrunched his eyes. _What do I tell her?_ Alphys frantically looked around before pointing at some blueprints and the clock on her desk. Sans understood. “Sorry, Tori. We’ve got our hands full at the moment, really shouldn’t try to do more than we can 'handle’.”  
    “Oh, don’t worry. I asked just in case. I know you two are very busy.” She looked to the side a thin smile. “You two have been working very hard to represent monsters here in the surface. I’m proud of you.” She nodded her head. Sans and Alphys looked at each other with a feigned smile. “Well then. It was good to see you.” She walked to the door and turned around just before leaving. “Keep up the good work! Bye!”  
    “See ya, Tori.”  
    “G-goodbye, your m-majesty!”  
    Toriel smiled at them and waved before walking down the hallway. Sans and Alphys stood in the now silent room for a minute, taking deep breaths.  
   Then Sans clapped his hands.“ Well,  let’s get to work. ” He began rummaging through his desk looking for some notes but stopped when he realized Alphys wasn’t moving.“ Uh… Al? Is something wrong?”  
    She turned around to face him with a somber expression. “D- do you think we’ll ever find a c- cure?”  
    He made a confused expression. “What? Of course we will. Fr- They depend on us.” He let out a nervous chuckle. “Where’s this coming from?”  
   " I- It’s been half a year, S-sans.“ She put her hands together and signed. "I… I’m… G-g-g…” Sans squinted his eyes but said nothing and waited for her to finish. “………..”  
    “I’m getting t- tired of this.” She finally said.  
    Sans remained silent, processing what she had just said.  
    “I’ve b-been wanting to come clean with everyone f-for a while…” She continued and then spoke in a barely audible voice. “I thought I was done with lying…”   
    Sans looked at the floor and put his hands in his pockets. “We can’t. Frisk asked us not to tell anyone.”  
The same thought crossed their heads. _Who could blame them for that?_ They hadn’t been told all the details but they did know that the kid, their savior,  had done things they weren’t proud about and had let themselves be led astray by something Sans and Alphys could only imagine to be a demon.  
    Chara. The first fallen child. Toriel’s dead kid. Well, one of them.  
    Sans sighed. “Let’s… Let’s just do this one test. See if we’re getting closer to finding a solution.” He wiped his forehead his sleeve. “And if it turns out that were getting nowhere… We’ll tell them.”  
    Alphys took off her glasses and wiped them with her lab coat as she considered the option. When she finally put them back on,  she nodded.  
    Sans smiled. “Alright,  then.”  
    She grabbed a folder from her desk and headed to the door. “Y- yeah. L- Lets go.”

* * *

    After walking a good ten minutes through a series of hallways, Sans and Alphys reached the experimentation room that had been assigned to their research. A bright green soul sat in a transparent container on top of a platform, around it sat two machines that were pointing at it against a wall, X-ray machines. At least in appearance.  
    “So, what’s the story behind this one?” Sans asked.  
    Alphys opened the folder and read the report. “Car crash. It also says that she d-donated to the various fundraisers for monsters that were having i-issues on the surface.”  
    “Well, it makes sense that she would offer to donate her soul in case anything happened to her then…” He walked towards a door to the right that lead to an observation cabin and looked at the screens.  
    Alphys spoke as she entered behind him, “So, y-you said that we would come clean if it d-doesn’t work this time… A-are you sure we should continue increasing the f-frecuency?”  
    “Well, it’s the only thing that’s left to try.” This was had they had been working on for the past few months. A way to determine the nature of souls, like, in a more scientific way. A way that could let them know how to fix Frisk’s soul. It was hard at first, when every method know to humans and monsters had proven useless. Nothing could see past the outside of the souls. What about something no one knows, then? Determination was still unknown to humans and even monsters didn’t know all that much about it. So they tried, and tried, and tried. Different machines, until they reached the X-ray machine. Different sizes, until they found the size that wasn’t small enough to pierce and harm the souls and that wasn’t big enough to overload it. And now frequencies. There were so many possibilities so this had taken up most of their time. More than everything else. “Let’s go from the last one we tried and keep going up like always.”  
    Alphys nodded and began programming the machines to do as told. After she was done, she pushed to button and began monitoring the determination output from the machines and the soul’s vitals. Sans was more interested in watching how the souls visibly reacted through the window. He would’ve like to see it up close but sadly no monster could, not without turning into a puddle soon afterwards. He watched the soul flicker and bounce as the red determination streams showered it. He remembered the time when he wasn’t sure if the souls moved because they liked the feeling of determination or because it was hurting them. He was relieved when the souls didn’t shy away from the determination, even when they weren’t captive inside containers. They still had to keep them in containers though. Lab protocols.  
    As he remembered, the soul began to flicker. A sign that it would soon destabilize and  shatter due to the raw determination overload. He sighed and leaned on a console while looking at the floor to avoid Alphys’ pitying stare and also because he was unwilling to watch another failure. The last failure. What were they going to say to Frisk? To everyone? _To Toriel?_ He realized his thoughts were slowly sinking into the dreaded fatalistic territory but didn’t feel like doing anything to stop them.  
    Then there was a flash of light.  
    There had never been any flashes of light.  
    Sans immediately  looked up and watched carefully to see exactly had changed. He saw the soul still flickering but then noticed something had appeared on the screen behind it. “Alphys! Turn off the streams!”  
    “R-right!” She replied as she tried to refocus on the machinery after being distracted by the light. Soon enough, the red streams stopped showering the soul and Sans darted out of the room to examine the screen. “S-sans, hold up!”  
    But he was already levitating the screen towards himself in order to check it out. He stared at it with wide eyes until Alphys reached his side. There was a heart shaped imprint on it. They didn’t need to say anything in order to know what they had to do. “L-let’s take it to the microscope.”  
    They entered another door in the room to a room that contained a large microscope. Luckily they’d had the foresight that they would need something to closely analyze any results they got so everything had already been set up. Not without problems of course, but they couldn’t be bothered to deal with what the humans thought of them. _Don’t say that, darlings! We all need to make great impressions!_ The memory of Metatton’s lecture intruded into Sans’ thoughts. _uh, nah._ Sans chuckled when remembering his response.  
He then tried to concentrate on the situation at hand without getting distracted but soon realized that after placing the screen under the microscope he had nothing to do other than stand around while Alphys programmed the microscope and wait until she had the results. He placed his hands in his jacket pockets underneath the lab coat. and fiddle with a piece of paper before pulling it out. A receipt from the time he tried out all the ketchup brands in the local supermarket. Tried. He didn’t have enough money at hand so he just bought Heinz and some pasta for Papyrus.  
    “S-sans! Look at this!” Alphys suddenly shouted. He rushed to where she was standing and looked into the lens.  
    “… it’s like photons.” The heart shape was made of millions of small particles, like a mass made of constantly moving energy that seemed solid at first glance. “Do you think our souls are like this?”  
    “It’s a g-good hypothesis, but we have n-no way to know…” she replied. “So… l-let’s test the same configuration on more souls and-”  
    “Then we’re going to check Frisk, see how that little demon has its hold on their soul and save them.”


End file.
